With all the attention being paid to how much money the candidates are raising online, I think we need to better understand what “online fundraising” means.  Does it just include funds that are solicited and fulfilled online, or does it also include any funds submitted through the candidates’ online contribution forms, regardless of how solicited?  Or what if people mail in a check based on an email solicitation?  You see, this is not such a simple question.

Further, while we tend to focus on online campaign strategies in isolation from other campaign strategies, that view is already dated.  The boundaries between online and offline campaign strategies are blurred, at a minimum, and obliterated at most.  One only need look at the spike in Obama’s YouTube views following the extensive coverage CNN and the rest of the media gave to the 1984 video to see that offline developments drive online activity.

So let me suggest a typology for online fundraising:

1. The solicitation and fulfillment are both online
2. The solicitation is offline and the fulfillment is online
3. The solicitation is online and the fulfillment is offline